The 1999

Women's World Chess Championship The Women's World Chess Championship is a chess match played to determine the Women's World Chess Champion. It has been administered by FIDE since its inception in 1927, unlike the absolute World Chess Championship, which only came under FIDE's ...

was won by former champion

Xie Jun Xie Jun (born October 30, 1970) is a Chinese chess grandmaster and is the first Asian woman to become a chess grandmaster. She had two separate reigns as Women's World Chess Champion, from 1991 to 1996 and again from 1999 to 2001. Xie is one ...

, who regained her title after defeating

Alisa Galliamova Alisa Mikhailovna Galliamova (, ; born 18 January 1972 in Kazan) is a Russian chess player who holds the FIDE titles of International Master (IM) and Woman Grandmaster (WGM). She is twice runner-up at the Women's World Chess Championship, in 19 ...

. Previous to the match, reigning champion

Susan Polgar Susan Polgar (born April 19, 1969, as Polgár Zsuzsanna and often known as Zsuzsa Polgár) is a Hungarian-American chess grandmaster. Polgár was Women's World Chess Champion from 1996 to 1999. On FIDE's Elo rating system list of July 1984, a ...

had been stripped of her title after much controversy.

1995 Interzonal Tournament

As part of the qualification process, an

Interzonal Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by the World Chess Federation FIDE from the 1950s to the 1990s. They were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle and were held after the Zonal tournaments, and before the Ca ...

tournament was held in Chişinău in 1995, featuring the best players from each FIDE zone. 52 players took part with the top seven qualifying for the Candidates Tournament. For the third time, the Interzonal was played as a 13-round

Swiss system tournament A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...

. : The last round game between Radu and Lematschko wasn't played.

1997 Candidates Tournament

The seven qualifiers from the Interzonal Tournament were joined by the loser of the last championship match, Xie Jun, as well as the two runners-up from the previous tournament, Chiburdanidze and Cramling. These ten players contested a double round-robin tournament in

Groningen Groningen ( , ; ; or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen (province), Groningen province in the Netherlands. Dubbed the "capital of the north", Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of ...

in December 1997, from which the top two would advance to the final to determine the challenger. Galliamova and Xie Jun finished first and second.

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

decided that the whole final match should be played in

Shenyang Shenyang,; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly known as Fengtian formerly known by its Manchu language, Manchu name Mukden, is a sub-provincial city in China and the list of capitals in China#Province capitals, provincial capital of Liaonin ...

, China, after Chinese sponsors made the best offer for the prize fund. However, Galliamova refused to play entirely on her opponent's home turf, so Xie Jun was declared the winner by default and given the right to challenge champion Polgar. : Kachiani-Gersinska withdrew after 10 rounds.

1999 Championship Match

The championship match was at first scheduled to take place in November 1998, but champion

requested a postponement because she was pregnant. FIDE had been unable to find a satisfactory sponsor, so the request was granted. By the time FIDE announced the new date and venue for the title match to be played China in 1999, Polgar had given birth to her son Tom—however, she still considered that the time to recover from childbirth and prepare for the new match was insufficient. In addition, like Galliamova, she didn't want to play entirely in the opponent's home country. She also wanted a significantly larger prize fund, so she requested that the match be postponed again. This time FIDE refused and negotiations broke down. Instead FIDE ruled that Polgar had forfeited the title and arranged a new title match between the two Candidates finalists, Xie Jun and Galliamova. The match was played in

Kazan Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...

Tatarstan Tatarstan, officially the Republic of Tatarstan, sometimes also called Tataria, is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. It is a part of the Volga Federal District; and its capital city, capital and largest city i ...

, and

, China, in 1999. Xie Jun won by two points and regained the title that she had lost to Polgar three years previously. :

References

{{Women's World Chess Championships Women's World Chess Championships 1999 in chess 1999 in women's sport